ALL SCI-FI

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Of all Ray's many unmade projects, Force of the Trojans showed the most promise.

The film would have been the third collaboration with screenwriter Beverly Cross, following Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and Clash of the Titans in 1981.

It was based on the Aeneid, the story of the Trojan who travels to Italy and eventually becomes the ancestor of the Romans. The story opens with the siege of Troy, and the attack with the giant wooden horse. The story arc follows Trojan Prince Aeneas and his battle for revenge following the death of his wife during the Battle of Troy, which ultimately leads to the founding of Rome.

For this new film, there were to be numerous animated creature sequences to bring even more spectacle than Clash of the Titans.

These included a giant talking sphinx, the tentacled sea creature Charybdis and, on land, a vicious jaw-snapping creation called Scylla. For the film's grand finale, the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse may have been animated in whole or part. David Allen created a budget for this sequence, and for six stop-motion models for a planned Pandora's Box sequence. ILM's Phil Tippett and Dennis Muren were also approached by Charles Schneer regarding the visual effects for this project.

Charles Schneer started farming out the animation workload for the film to a variety of animators in the UK and US. Ray was determined to keep one of the key sequences under his control, however; in a critical scene in the film, Prince Aeneas and his party are first attacked by the sea creature Charybdis and then predatory land creature Scylla.

Ray envisioned an octopus-type creature for Charybdis, while his Scylla was a mixture of lizard with crab-like legs and a head similar to Hydra.

Around this time, Ray officially announced his own retirement. Ray sums up why the film didn't make it to the screen. "At the time we were looking for production backing, audience tests revealed that the public had turned to more violent subjects loaded with sex and muscles. Mythology simply could not be converted into this type of 'entertainment,' and MGM lost interest. As the money was not forthcoming and as we couldn't find new backers, the project slowly faded away."

Sidebar: The end of an era and what a shame. Ray was now open to having other top notch animators on his films. As the old saying goes, many hands make light work, or in this case quick work. By not having Ray alone producing all of the stop-motion animated scenes and involving other fine animators, such a movie would have been able to be finished much earlier and ready to release, with no loss of quality yo the animated scenes.

My opinion is also that audiences were seeking more science fiction films at this stage in the pre-Star Wars era, rather than mythological, swashbuckling types of films. Ray had once said that he found the science fiction film genre to be a political and mechanical type of atmosphere, and this did not really appeal to him. He loved the classic myths, magic mixed with romance and high adventure. So I kind of doubt he would have shifted to doing hard science fiction movies for his productions.

My other observation is that as fantastic as Ray's work is, and there is no bigger fan of him than I am, he could repeat himself with his creatures in his films.

Force of Trojans would have had an octopus-like creature (Scylla), but we saw him do a mutated giant octopus in It Came From Beneath the Sea. The Charybdis was to be a combination of crab-like legs similar to the giant crab in his Mysterious Island. It would also have a head that was comparable to his marvelous Hydra from Jason and the Argonauts. In The Golden Voyage of Sinbad he had a giant Centaur that was cyclops-like.

Now, his models and animation were always superb looking. However, I wanted to see him come up with original looking creations rather than return to his previous ones. He certainly had the imagination do do so with each feature film.

Harryhausen: The Lost Movies by John Walsh.

[Bud Brewster]

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Mike, the members of All Sci-Fi (me included) are extremely grateful for the research you did on this unproduced Harryhausen movie. I'd never heard of this project, so I was amazed by the revelations you shared.

As for your own thoughts on the matter, I agree completely with everything you said. For example, you're right that Harryhausen shines the brightest when he designs an original creature like the hydra or the Ymir.







Mike, your description of the premise of Force of the Trojans suggests that it would have suffered from the same unfortunate flaw that spoiled Clash of the Titans — which was also penned by Beverly Cross. The problem was that it had a bloated story with too many characters and too much melodrama.

In the case of Force of the Trojans, it's overloaded with Roman history. A fantasy adventure movie shouldn't be a history lesson.

Ironically, Beverly Cross is the talented person behind the perfect Harryhausen mythological adventure — Jason and the Argonsuts.

That amazing movie has just right number of interesting characters, and just the right amount Greek history/mythology to keep the audience riveted by Jason's quest to acquire the Golden Fleece, so he can return to his ravaged homeland, slay King Pelius, and claim his rightful place on the throne!

(See? I just summarize that entire story in just twenty words!)

Everything Ray contributed to the plot was skillfully woven into the narrative. His animation scenes were built into the story — they weren't just icing on the cake. The audience knew that the quest the Argonauts embarked upon would include challenges and obstacles — and Ray provided these with dazzling special effects!

I'll never understand why Charles H. Schneer and Ray Harryhausen didn't realize that Jason and the Argonsuts was the prefect setup for a sequel that would have been a guaranteed blockbuster!

Today, Hollywood has finally learned the obvious.

When the public flocks to see a well-made movie, simply give them a well-made sequel! Columbia could have made millions in the 1960s if they'd produced several sequels to this wonderful movie. The mythological tales of Jason that follows his retrieval of the Golden Fleece include great ideas for a sequel.

The key to success, of course, is for the screenwriters to be inspired by the mythological tales . . . and then simply toss out whatever they don't like and make up whatever entertains the public!

Here's a summary of the tales of Jason on PBS.org which I'm sure you folks will find interest.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[tmlindsey]

Scylla RH concept art:





Could have been some spectacular film sequences!

I was lucky enough to see Jason and the Argonauts on the big screen during a re-release and loved it. Clash of the Titans never quite struck a cord with me.
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"Have you never wondered what it would be like to walk between the ticks and tocks of Time?"

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Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life

Ray, "When the film was released it generally received good reviews. Although in Britain the film was one of the top ten big moneymakers of 1963, it was unfortunate that the film opened in the States at the same time as the public was becoming tired of the Italian muscle epics that had seldom visualized the creatures in mythology, and which we had desperately tried to avoid being associated with."

"Columbia submitted the picture to the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for consideration as a possible special effects contender. We all fully expected it to earn at least a nomination for visual effects, but it was ignored and the picture that won was Cleopatra. I am told by certain Academy members that it was seen as nothing very extraordinary, but how could that be, when at the time nothing like it had ever been done before for the screen? A nomination and an award would have helped it at the box office."

So the tragedy here is that poor Ray's film was being lumped in with the tsunami of muscular hero "B" films instead of the public recognizing it as an entirely separate high production and classy work. The other slap in the face was the ignorance of the Academy in not appreciating his superlative visual effects and at least putting it in for a nomination. How could they be so foolish? In any event, both of these events that were beyond Ray or Charles control ended up hurting their masterpiece in the lucrative US movie market.

Had Jason been a much bigger box office smash & received a nomination, or better yet, won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, then I think Ray & Charles would have jumped on the opportunity to produce a sequel as you mention, Bruce. They would have then had the backing of Columbia Pictures and the budget to do so. Fate just wasn't kind to Jason at that time. Nowadays it's an entirely different story. Jason is revered by fans and critics alike as Ray & Charles magnum opus.

[Bud Brewster]

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Good lord, that bloated soap opera that nearly bankrupted 20th Century Fox got the Oscar for special effects?

Those dimwitted people ain't got the brains that God gave geese!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

Looking through the list of the films throughout the years that won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects shows that the voters seemed to, in some cases, not know what the hell they were doing with their votes.

What confuses me is that these voters are all members of the Academy and are in, or were in, the filmmaking business. So should they not have some working knowledge of special effects and know mediocre, routine, good, and outstanding visual effects from one another? It ain't like Joe the butcher is casting his vote.